Teetering Graphite 巛－ － － 谷
2022 / 12:50 / B/W / Sound / 1.33:1 / USA / Original format: 16mm Reversal > 35mm
(Material Immaterial #3)
Broken landscapes like screen paintings from a long river. Teetering Graphite shudders in the crevices between document, surrealism, and ethereality, sketching a life-world that is disintegrating.
By overlapping positive and negative images, the film attempts to create a middle ground between the real and the unreal. If there is a gap in the connection between a person's memory and real life, the stray fragments of life may find a glimmer of hope in that middle ground. Filmed along the Santa Clarita riverbed, disconnected language and dissonant landscapes gradually highlight a person's presence and disappearance. The river of the universe comes from the vast void and returns to the vast void.
河流在屏風般的風景中一頁頁斷開。在寫實、超現實、空靈的隙縫中，《巛－ － － 谷》顫慄地描繪出一個生命宇宙的正在離散。
透過正負影像的重疊，影片試圖在真實與虛幻之間創造一個中間地帶。假如一個人的記憶和真實生活發生了銜接裂縫，游離的生命碎片也許會在那中間地帶找到一絲安身的希望。這部電影沿著聖塔克拉麗塔河床拍攝，破碎的語言和風景逐漸凸顯一個人的存在與消失。宇宙之河，從浩瀚虛空而來，又歸於浩瀚虛空。
Artist statement:
The film was filmed along the banks of the Santa Clara River, from its source in Acton westward through Santa Clarita, Piru, Fillmore and Santa Paula, and then finally to the Pacific Ocean in Ventura. Initially, I wanted to record the process of my mother-in-law's amnesia, but due to the sudden epidemic, everyone was quarantined. When I saw my mother-in-law again, she remembered almost nothing, due to the progress of Alzheimer's. This form of screen-painting is suitable for describing what I saw and felt at that time. The fragments of the film are the memories, the time and space of life, the scenery cut under the lens, and the emotional relationships between people that are sometimes broken and sometimes continued.
創作動機：
本片沿著聖克拉拉河沿岸拍攝，從源頭阿克頓向西，經過聖克拉里塔、皮魯、菲爾莫爾和聖保拉，最後在文圖拉到達太平洋。最初想記錄婆婆失憶的過程，但因為突發的疫情，人與人都被隔離了。當我再次見到婆婆時，她因阿兹海默症幾乎什麼都不記得。我覺得屏風繪畫的形式非常適合描述當時的所見所感。片片段段的電影是記憶，是生活的時空，是鏡頭下剪裁的風景，是人與人之間時而斷裂、時而延續的情感關係。
Map
“A portrait of lost, irreplaceable moments tenderly captured by the camera.”
— Tokyo Image Forum Festival 2023
“This film is a staggering reminder that avant-garde film practices can capture humanity at its most elemental. Its stark images and sharp disjunctions portray dementia with tenderness, making for a profound and deeply affecting work.”
— San Diego Asian Film Festival 2023, Best Experimental Film Award